


Living For You

by Not_You



Series: one only understands the things that one tames [19]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Angst, Drug Abuse, Drugs, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Men Crying, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Past Drug Addiction, Reunions, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 11:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1303456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The memory of Clint's dom keeps him alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living For You

Clint can’t think about it when he comes back. He can’t think about it or he’ll break down. That Loki was able to control him so completely, that he has done so much damage to SHIELD, the only real family he has ever had. After he and his new teammates finish their shawarma, he goes back to the SHIELD sub barracks on autopilot. He can’t face that neat little house right now. He can’t face anything, and slides into a hard and dreamless sleep for the next sixteen hours, the kind of thing he used to manage with booze when the uppers got to be too much. He fights against waking up, but finally has to take a piss and properly debrief. It’s horrible, and he cries way too much and he hates it when anyone who isn’t Phil sees him cry, and Phil is fucking dead. 

At least Clint didn’t do it himself. Helping to make it happen is enough guilt, but if he had just leveled and shot like he did with Fury, well. Suicide would be the only option, instead of a really tempting bad idea. It’s not like Natasha isn’t devastated, after all. She is his main comfort right at first. She comes over and makes sure that he bathes and eats, and she blows him while he cries on that one night they’re never going to speak of again, and she makes sure he goes to therapy even though he fucking hates it. He has Phil’s ring on a chain around his neck, and he never takes it off.

Clint had almost forgotten how to just slog along with one foot in front of the other, but now this valuable survival skill comes back to him. He gets the house in order and then closes it up, because it’s more than he can bear. Natasha helps, and lets him get drunk afterward, even though he can tell she’s watching him for trouble.

What really helps the most are his teammates, corny as it would sound to say it aloud. Steve almost understands. He’s a dom who lost his sub only a few months ago in his own timeline, and even if it wasn’t nearly as much his fault as Phil’s death was Clint’s, he feels like it was. They fall into a platonic domming arrangement without even thinking about it. Clint is still wearing Phil’s collar, but when he has a bad night and starts thinking about destroying Phil’s various gifts to him, he boxes them up and carries them a floor down the tower for Steve to look after. When Steve just needs to hold a sub in his arms and rock slowly back and forth, Clint lets him do it for as long as he needs to, no matter how bored he gets or how late he’s running.

Pepper talks to him about sub news and lets him vent, and Tony lets him bitch about the therapist without any clucking or advice to really apply himself to feeling better. Tony gets that there is no feeling better, that every day Clint doesn’t just wake up and fellate a fucking gun can be counted as a win. It’s nice to be around someone realistic, and who doesn’t give him that worried look when he drinks. Of course, both of them are trying to keep it away from Bruce. The smell of scotch being a possible trigger for the Hulk makes both of them feel sick, and Clint knows that it can’t be helping Tony to always be biting back his references to Bruce. He appreciates the effort, though, since Bruce brings out Tony’s subby side. 

Tony doesn’t go all meek and docile, but the way he teases Bruce is just begging for a strongly dominant response. He hasn’t got one yet, but Clint has to assume it’s only a matter of time, even if Bruce _does_ treat every sub and sub-acting person he meets like they’re made of a mixture of spun sugar and spun glass. He makes tea for Clint, and has found him crying a couple of times and just held him. The tea tastes like wet hay and the hugs are a little bit too tight, but there’s a gentle and clumsy sweetness to Bruce’s attempts to help keep him alive that touches Clint’s heart.

As for Thor, Clint just avoids him. It’s too bad, he’d be a great cushion and he obviously _wants_ to do something for Clint, but just looking at him is a lot like being stabbed. And of course there are long stretches where Clint doesn’t want to see anyone, and hides out anywhere he can. Sometimes he lovingly fondles a handgun, imagining the peace he might find in the darkness of its barrel, but he knows he won’t do it. Phil wouldn’t want him to, and just the ghost of his dom’s concern for him is enough to keep him from anything more self-destructive than a bender. He’s kind of worried that he’ll rediscover speed, but he’s not cleared to work yet. There’s basically no reason to even be conscious, and he drinks way too much. He doesn’t even like liquor that much, but he knows damn well not to get into the painkillers.

And then on one of the interminable days, Fury shows up at Clint’s door. Pries him out of bed and gets him into clothes and shoes, because there’s something important going on. Clint isn’t sure what, but he lets Fury drag him out into a car, and from there into a windowless van, and from there into a cold and miserable research station way too much like the one the Tesseract was housed in.

“The fuck we doin’ here?” Clint asks, only slurring a little.

“I wish you were sober, but I guess I can’t blame you. Wait here.”

Clint waits, and when he looks up and sees Fury leading Phil into the room, he doesn’t react at first because it simply can’t be true. And then Phil is coming closer, and he can’t be Phil, he has to be some kind of decoy or disguise, or… or anything but Phil. Because Phil is dead. And then he’s pulling Clint into his arms and he smells the same as ever and Clint can’t stop crying.


End file.
